


Considerations

by aeli_kindara



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-04
Updated: 2006-07-04
Packaged: 2019-02-27 11:29:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13247301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeli_kindara/pseuds/aeli_kindara
Summary: The war is over, but the Ministry still wants Harry to hunt down the remaining Death Eaters, and he reluctantly agrees.They don't tell him he'll be working with Severus Snape.





	Considerations

**Author's Note:**

> For firescribble.

Harry does not want to be here. He does not want to look into the eyes of old friends and see the way they fear him, the way they shy away at his gaze — Tonks, Kingsley, Moody, the rest. He doesn’t want them to see the eighteen-year-old boy who met Lord Voldemort wreathed in fire, who brought him down for all the world to see. He wants them to see him, Harry, maybe someone worth a little respect but human, with his issues and his stupidities and his life.

Honestly. He feels like some old adventurer come for the first time to foreign shores, watching the native people bow down before him for his strangeness, his horse and his gun. Only the natives wear the faces of his friends and bow and scrape before him as if they’ve never seen him before.

It’s a Muggle image, such a very Muggle image it half makes him sick to his stomach and half makes him want to march out of this building and never lay hands on a wand again.

It isn’t fair that they want him to do this, want him to help hunt down the Death Eaters even now that he’s dealt with Voldemort. He doesn’t want to — he’s fought this long, he’s avenged his parents and his friends, and he’s just tired of it all. In another year, maybe, he’d be ready. But not now. He just can’t do this now.

He wonders what they’d say if he turned around and walked out right now, whether they’d try to stop him or be simply too afraid. He’s tempted to try it.

Then Moody says, “You’ll be working with Severus Snape,” and his entire world stops moving.

\---

“Potter.” Snape’s tone is crisp, sharp. Harry studies him. His black hair is as lank and slimy as ever, face pallid, cold eyes fixed on Harry’s face. If he looks a little thin, Harry certainly doesn’t notice, much less care.

“Snape.”

Snape’s lip curls; it’s clear that he’s itching to correct Harry, tell him that’s Professor Snape to him, but he can’t, not anymore, and Harry takes vicious triumph in it.

“I take it they have saddled me with you,” Snape declares, his very voice a sneer, “so that I may be able to in some fashion prevent your incompetence’s effects from being too badly felt.”

Harry looks calmly back at him. Somehow, he doesn’t feel angry. “I killed Voldemort,” he says levelly. “You can’t pull that shit on me.”

The former Potions Master’s expression is unreadable. “Very well,” he says after a moment. “Let us both acknowledge that it is because they fear you, and get to work.”

“You don’t,” says Harry.

“Don’t what?” Snape’s expression is all haughty disdain.

“Fear me,” says Harry, stepping forward. “Why not? You should. You killed Dumbledore, you betrayed us all —”

“Do not speak of that which you do not know,” Snape snaps at him.

Harry laughs. “I was _there_. I saw you. What’s to be left in doubt?”

Snape purses his lips. “I see no point in discussing this further, when you so clearly will listen to nothing I have to say.”

“Oh,” says Harry, feeling extremely ugly, “I didn’t realize you were planning on saying anything.”

He revels in the fact that Snape is struggling, truly struggling, to keep calm. “I’ll tell you this once, Potter,” he says at last, voice tightly clipped, “so you might do best to listen. I killed Professor Dumbledore on his own orders, and if you think said action was easy, you are sadly deluded.”

“On his orders,” Harry snorts. “Why would Dumbledore order you to do something like that?”

Snape’s lips are pressed so tightly together now that they’re completely white. It suits him, Harry thinks. “I would not expect you to understand the plans and desires of a man such as Professor Dumbledore, as they are far beyond the reaches of your own simple mind.”

“Yeah?” Harry asks. “Well, try me.”

Snape turns away. “I was ordered to kill Professor Dumbledore for a number of reasons, most of which are too complex to explain to you, Potter. The largest one, however, was to protect you.”

“And how did killing Dumbledore protect me?” Harry asks bitterly. “Dumbledore only ever helped me, he —”

“Knew that I could help you better,” Snape says coldly, turning swiftly and taking a step closer to Harry. He grasps his chin and pulls his face up, forcing their eyes to meet. “Tell me, Potter, would you have defeated Voldemort in the final battle if I had not acted to help you?”

Harry tries to look away, but he can’t. “No,” he mutters through his teeth.

“Precisely,” Snape says, bony fingers tight enough on Harry’s chin to be painful. “Professor Dumbledore had a choice between his life and mine. He chose mine — for your sake, Potter, and don’t you forget it.”

He turns and sweeps down the corridor, Harry standing tongue-tied in his wake. He’s defeated Voldemort; no one’s supposed to make him feel like a flustered child anymore. Especially not Severus Snape.

“Come,” Snape commands imperiously, half-turning to beckon him, and there’s nothing Harry can do but hurry after.

\---

“So what exactly do we have to do?” Harry asks, sitting in the office — far too small for the two of them — and gritting his teeth. “And how much of it do I have to do with you?”

Snape doesn’t look at him. “I am intended to be the brains behind this operation, and you the brawn,” he informs Harry. “It is true that I can find most of the remaining Death Eaters far better than anyone else who should desire to. However, that you would be more skilled at taking them in...” He trails off, lip curling.

Before, Harry would have seethed inwardly, nursing his anger and hatred for Snape. Now, he stares at him for a moment, long enough for the older man to realize he’s not unsettled in the least, before saying, “I am not doing this job so that I can compete with a slimeball like you. I am here so that I can eradicate the remaining Death Eaters and be done with it — and for the record —” He grabs Snape’s wrist, flipping his arm over and pushing up the sleeve in one swift movement to reveal the Dark Mark that twists there on his pale skin. “I still consider you one of them.”

Snape looks at him long and hard, as if his eyes are searching for something Harry doesn’t know is there. At last, he says, “All right. We’ve been assigned to look for the siblings Amycus and Alecto Carrow, with whom I believe you may be familiar?”

“A little,” Harry says, mind blurring back to the night Dumbledore was killed. A dumpy, leering witch and wizard — annoying, but not overly dangerous.

“Moody wants to see us work together first on something easy, to make sure we don’t bite each other’s heads off,” Snape says, as if reading his mind.

“Oh, goody,” says Harry. “Don’t suppose he’ll let me get out of this if I _do_ bite your head off? For that matter, isn’t he terrified I’m going to bite _his_ head off?”

That might actually be a smile on Snape’s face, rather than his usual smirk, but it’s gone too quickly for Harry to tell. “Most likely,” he replies smoothly. “As for the Carrows, I have a file here on their activities over the past twenty years — it may help lead us to them.”

“What’s the point?” Harry asks. “Aren’t you the resident Death Eater expert?”

Snape raises an eyebrow. “I am not sure you realize the sheer quantity of hiding places the Death Eaters have prepared for themselves. To search the Carrows out through — _guess and check_ , as you might call it — would be entirely foolish.”

Harry gives a frustrated sigh. “All right, then — whatever. Let’s get to work.”

\---

The place is a small cave in Wales. Looking down at the entrance, Harry raises his eyebrows skeptically. “You’re telling me they’re hiding out here? Could they even fit inside?”

Snape sneers at him. “If you’re afraid, I’ll go first.”

“Nice try, Vulture Man,” Harry snaps and, ducking his head, lowers himself slowly through the entrance. There’s a moment where his shoulders scrape against both sides and then he’s through, dropping softly onto the floor, wand at ready. He takes a few steps to the side and Snape drops in as well, robes billowing.

It’s a little more spacious here, but not by much. Neither of them can stand fully upright, and it’s dark and dank, but ahead of them, Harry thinks he can see a flickering light. He glances at Snape, who nods and steps forward, giving Harry no option but to fall into step behind him, half-crouched and tense.

Snape straightens as they come into the room. This one is dry and comfortably large; it looks as if it’s been shaped by magic. On two cots directly across from them, a pudgy wizard and a similarly shaped witch are fast asleep. Harry steps up beside Snape, glances at him, and at his silent nod, each of them approach one of the cots silently until they have their wands trained directly on their targets. Harry looks up at Snape, who holds out his hand — one finger, two, a third, and Harry thinks _Petrificus totalus!_ with all his might.

Alecto’s body snaps stiff as a board, her eyes suddenly open but her face unable to twist in the rage and fear with which she glares at him. At the other cot, thin cords shoot from Snape’s wand, binding Amycus tightly, and Harry feels weak and dizzy for a moment, remembering that sneering face, the same ropes coiling tightly around Remus Lupin’s wrists. Remus is dead now, along with many others — McGonagall, Percy Weasley, Ginny, Seamus, Sturgis Podmore, dozens more. And here’s Snape, with all of his crimes, alive and well. Rage boils inside of Harry, but he chokes it down. This is a job, this is something he has to do. He can reckon with Snape later.

\---

Somehow, the time to reckon with Snape never comes.

They take care of dozens of more jobs, bringing in Death Eaters Harry never knew existed and some he did. They capture the Lestranges in October, or the two remaining ones—Snape killed Bellatrix in the final battle, to get her out of Harry’s way to Voldemort. Harry doesn’t find this out until he asks why they’re only after two Lestranges, and half of him is mad he never got to take the woman down himself, but the other half is startled and a little pleased, which makes no sense at all.

Snape’s good, though, and that’s all right to admit by now because Snape’s conceded that he’s good as well, and they do make a good team.

Snape’s not scared of Harry biting his head off, there’s no question about that.

\---

It’s when he’s talking to Hermione that he first calls him “Severus”.

Hermione has a way of doing that, of making you be honest in the weirdest little ways. Freudian slips, she’d call them. Harry’s healed enough by now to retort that he saw more in Ginny than her hair, thank you very much, and that Freud was just sick-minded, anyway.

Not that using someone’s first name is any sort of grounds for something sick-minded.

Thankfully, Hermione agrees. “So you’re getting along with him, then?” she asks.

“Yeah,” says Harry, surprised to hear himself admit it. “More or less.”

“I just thought,” Hermione starts, but doesn’t finish her sentence.

“Thought what?” Harry prods.

She shrugs. “I thought you’d be slower to forgive him — for Dumbledore and everything. You even blamed him for Sirius at one point, didn’t you? Harry — you used to hate the man. I’m not saying this is bad, don’t get me wrong! I’m just surprised — _pleasantly_ surprised — you made your peace with him this easily.”

Harry blinks, thinking about it. “Me too,” he says at last, and they don’t speak further on the subject.

\---

It’s a stupid way to get hurt, the stupidest way, Harry thinks angrily, because they’ve already got the Death Eaters in hand and they’re on the way out of the house and it just _figures_ that there’d be a rotten floorboard and Severus’s foot would go straight through it.

“Shit,” says Harry, letting his floating Death Eater fall to the ground and dropping to his knees beside Snape. “Shit — you all right?”

“Fine,” gasps Snape, attempting to lever himself upright and failing. Harry grabs one of his hands and heaves, dragging him bodily up and out of the whole he’s punched in the floor.

“Can you stand?”

“I’m fine,” says Severus again, dropping Harry’s hand as if it’s a termite or some such thing. He promptly sways on his feet and nearly falls again before Harry catches him, easing him down into a sitting position.

“What happened?” he asks, drawing Severus’s left leg out straight and pulling back the robe.

“Agh — nail,” Snape gasps. There’s a long, deep gash up the side of his leg. “Didn’t — shit —”

Harry draws back, afraid to hurt him. “You know any spells to use on this?”

“You need to — clean it, first, rust and all,” Snape tells him, eyes closed and head bent back. “And not _Scourgify_ , idiot boy, that’s —”

Harry actually laughs. “I know. _Salubris_ , right?”

“Yeah, that one.” Snape’s panting a little. “And don’t bungle it and turn it into _Salutis_ , I don’t want to start waving hello to every person I see —”

“Calm down,” Harry tells him. “ _Salubris_.”

Snape winces as if stung. After a second, he opens one eye. When he isn’t overcome by the insuperable urge to wish Harry a good day, he nods his approval. “Now — _Obligo_ to close up the wound. It won’t heal it completely, too deep for you to handle, but it won’t be bleeding and I’ll be fine to walk, understand?”

Harry nods. “ _Obligo_ ,” he says, pointing at the wound, and the skin closes up around it. It still looks red and ugly, though. “There won’t be internal bleeding, will there?”

“Not much,” says Severus. “Ah — help me —”

Harry helps him get up, only realizing a few moments later that Snape actually just asked him for help, and it felt natural — not like a triumph at all.

\---

“This is it, then,” says Harry, glancing around their now bare office, all his little mementos and chocolate frog cards packed up, Severus’s neat little row of potions gone, as well.

Severus gives him a curt nod without looking at him.

“You know,” says Harry on an impulse, “I still don’t — I don’t forgive you, you know. For what you did to Dumbledore, for what you did to all of us.”

Now Snape turns his head, watching Harry’s face for a moment before speaking. “I expected no more.”

“Yeah,” says Harry, reaching up to rub his nose. “Well. Just because —” He shrugs helplessly. “I don’t understand what goes on in your head anywhere near as well as you know what’s up with mine, so I can’t really say. But I think you haven’t forgiven yourself, either.”

Snape doesn’t speak.

“And in a kind of a stupid way — that makes it all right.”

There’s a pause, not quite awkward but something mostly like it, and then Harry shrugs one more time and turns to walk away.

“Potter.”

Harry turns to look at him.

“You say you think that I understand what goes on in your head?” Snape asks, idly toying with his sleeve, picking at the thread that’s coming loose there.

Harry shrugs. “You’re good at that sort of thing.”

A wry little laugh, more a gentle snort than anything. “As always, boy, you are hopelessly wrong.”

Harry’s startled into a laugh, a genuine one, and on an impulse, he takes a step forward and pulls Severus into a hug. His friend — is it friend, now? — freezes for a moment, and then his arms come up around Harry’s back, bony fingers splayed across his shoulder and side, breath a little too fast in Harry’s ear.

“You know,” says Harry quietly, “I really did enjoy it, you know — working with you and all.”

“I know,” says Severus, drawing back, actually smiling in a strained sort of way, but more because he isn’t used to it than anything else. “Dare I say, the feeling is mutual.”

Harry punches him lightly. “Don’t be stupid, I know it is,” he says, and for some odd reason he truly cannot fathom, he grabs a fistful of Severus’s robes and pulls them together again, this time to press his mouth against Snape’s thin lips.

“Potter,” says Severus, when they break apart a couple seconds later, “you are truly insane.”

“Yeah,” says Harry, staring at him, feeling the blood that’s risen in his face. “Yeah — I know. I just...” He trails off. “You were going to disappear, weren’t you, now that this was over?”

Snape watches him. “Perhaps,” he says evenly.

“Yeah, and — I suppose you are still, but... I’d rather you stuck around, you know.”

Severus’s eyes are fixed on his own, and for once Harry’s not at all afraid that he might be using Legilimency, partly because he knows it and partly because he’s got nothing more to hide.

Snape folds his arms against his chest, leaning back, studying Harry. At last, he speaks.

“I shall consider it.”


End file.
